Torture. I’ve been thinking about that lately. Not in a “50 Shades of Grey,” S&M kind of way, either. If only.

After giving it some thought, I don’t think it would take much to torture me or any other American for that matter. We are so used to being comfortable. It is our great quest in this world. Complete and utter comfort.

I imagine not the worst possible scenarios, but even the simplest, and I think I would give in. I think I would talk.

Just turn off the air conditioning on a summer day. Give me water without ice. Make me wear a headband that is too tight. Or make me wear socks to bed (oh God, the horror!). Or maybe an NRA hat and “I love Trump” shirt. Make me listen to country music. And I don’t even want to think about smells! Pretty much anything that smells bad will do me in. Like cat litter, farts, vomit, smelly feet, rotten meat, you get the picture (gag!). Or what about something that smells good? Like warm and squishy McDonald’s french fries? Let me smell them, but don’t let me eat them! None of these actually cause pain, so maybe a paper cut or dropping a can of soup on my toe! I’m telling you, it wouldn’t take much!

But what about true torture? The kind that any normal human would never even imagine? Would never want to do to another living creature. The kind that drops poison gas on children or locks dogs in cages for weeks without food or water. Humans did those things. Humans like me.

It was discovered this week that an animal trainer right next door to my medical practice, one that I took my dog to for agility training about a year ago, had abandoned at least 8 dogs without food or water in their building. Only 5 remained alive when they were found and to be alive under those conditions is being incredibly generous. Poisoned children and starved and neglected dogs all in one week! It’s just about more than I can bear. It’s like…torture.

The evil that can inspire such cruelty lives in me, too. It’s in my human DNA. It’s there, lurking. If it were an appendage, if evil grew from my body and became my right arm, I would cut it off! I would want nothing to do with it! I would live the rest of my life without my right arm and without any possibility of associating myself with those kind of people, that kind of evil. But alas, it is not that easy. The evil within me, within humanity is a moving target, an ever changing amoeba, it can not be captured or removed. And in an ironic twist, it can be justified and made righteous.

It’s war! Innocent people will be caught in the crossfire. It happens, civilian casualties are expected. They are just dogs, there are children starving too! You can’t save the world, you just gotta save yourself. It’s God’s will.

Justifying the evil that men (and women) do is really a way to provide comfort. It is incredibly uncomfortable to face the evil in others because it means we have to face the evil in us. Because in my mind, I’m one of the good guys.

(Please check out one of my favorite bloggers, themdmuse who in so many ways inspired this post. He’s a fellow doc, on the other side of the world, hurried and worried, trying to make sense of the world and continuing to do good in spite of it all. This is his response to the recent atrocities in Syria….

As a rule, I try not to watch gory videos. The news in print already stirs up my imagination in ways that scare the very underpants out of me. However, these videos manage to exceed my imagination in the length of their cruelty and the breadth of their heartlessness. I wonder how much wickedness it would take to come up with such acts. I wonder how someone could live like this. I wonder if these perpetrators have families- wives, sisters, children. When they look at them, how can they not see the dozens and scores of men, women and children they have wounded, maimed and killed? Such mindless violence scares me. I wonder if these people are human being like me, does that mean there is a part of me that is capable of this? The thought alone scares me silly. I’m sorry, I’m ranting all over your post, but I’m barely holding it together. And to think I’d already seen the very dregs of human decadence right here…)

I wish there was a love button. On WordPress that is.
Awww… Thanks a lot for the shout out.
To think that I had a part, how little regardless, in the making of this wonderful soul-stirring piece.
Now, on a slightly serious note, I’m wondering how many minutes you’d survive in this part of the world- given your ultra sensitive olfactory senses… My best bet is somewhere around three minutes 😂

A really thoughtful point. How much contrast there is between different people’s lives. I know it was meant in jest, but the reference to torture in 50 Shades really highlights the ambiguity that exists in the world!

I can so relate to this dilemma: how dangerous it feels to accept as a fellow human someone who has carried out such torture. Your post bought to mind the documentary ‘India’s Daughter’. I think it takes shared support to be able to face the challenge of addressing the many factors that can lead a human to find satisfaction in hurting others is

And I reckon the group dynamics that can heal it too … somehow getting more effective about taking shared responsibility as a community for what’s happening to kids in every home which can lead to this

Sometimes I wonder if there is so much addiction because of the very thing you speak of here. There’s this underlying depression many of us have because of the awareness of these things. Even if we aren’t ‘there’, in our souls we know it happens day in and day out (at least I do) and it damages us. And it’s not just to people and animals, but our earth. We are just destroying everything! Some nights I can barely sleep. And we all participate in these things by not doing more to stop them ( I know I don’t) and that’s when I am really filled with a sense of helplessness and loss. It can be utterly overwhelming…

I agree. I’ve had many sleepless nights thinking about all the things that need to done and I get paralyzed because I don’t know where to start so nothing happens! I decided to start small. Blogs, volunteering, teaching my kids. One step at a time!

I can’t get those images out of my head either and it disgusts me which is really not the correct word but it’s all I can come up with but such a weak word to describe my feelings. I’m 100% with you…how do these people sleep at night?! Where are their souls?!! It’s working on me overtime!! I hate seeing any suffering at all human or otherwise but intentional suffering CAUSED by humans…well, I will never be able to understand that!!

I spend too much time thinking about torture. That comes, I imagine, from my work, from listening to stories of abuse, neglect, and yes, torture. I’m not sure how any of us do this, except there are also stories of bravery, generosity, and survivance.